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"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

Joe Nocera (NYT) "Let's Start Paying College Athletes"

The late great William F. Buckley Jr. once said that he'd rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book rather than the 2000 members of the Harvard faculty.

For my part, I'd prefer to be governed by anybody, rather than the the editors and columnists of the New York Times. Today's example: Business columnist Joe Nocera. Who has written this lengthy Times Sunday Magazine commentary on "Let's Start Paying College Athletes."

Nocera is a relative newcomer to the Times; within just weeks of his arrival this year, he had written a wildly intemperate column in which he compared "Tea Party Republicans" with terrorists, and wrote that they "have waged jihad on the American people," with a further suggestion that they "can put aside their suicide vests." Nocera's rhetoric didn't raise an eyebrow among his Times editors, apparently, who published it. But the public blowback was such that Nocera soon apologized, writing:

The words I chose were intemperate and offensive to many, and I've been roundly criticized. I was a hypocrite, the critics said, for using such language when on other occasions I've called for a more civil politics. In the cool light of day, I agree with them. I apologize.

Joe Nocera was born and raised in that hotbed of college football, Providence, Rhode Island. And his college degree was earned at that traditional football powerhouse, Boston University. That extensive background in college football explains why Nocera apparently never interviewed any college football coaches or administrators. In any event, he didn't quote any.

Joe Nocera essentially starts with that kernel of truth that underlies most Times editorials, before they go completely haywire. It is the notion -- one that I agree with -- that increasingly, college football players, as well as players in men's college basketball, are distanced from the rest of the student body in terms of being real "student-athletes." That's no doubt true, and in fact Nocera later gets to a very good quote from former University of Michigan President James Duderstadt which underscores that point; "Most sports can be justified as part of what a university does. But big-time football and men’s basketball are clearly commercial entertainment and have been pulled away from the fundamental purpose of a university."

So what solution has Joe Nocera given us? A five-point plan, that is so insane on its face that if one were not careful, one could easily get caught up in the details of the plan's workings, and lose sight of the fact that the plan isn't even remotely intended to, or capable of, remedying the basic problem outlined in the previous paragraph. In a word, what Joe Nocera proposes is a college football operation that appears to be NFL-Lite, and would, beyond any doubt, set college football on a path to erasing any serious connection between colleges and football apart from marketing snazzy apparel. Joe Nocera is the boldest idiot since, well, Tom Friedman.

The Nocera plan (I commend it in all its glorious detail in the linked article) is basically this:

Allow colleges to pay players. Pay would be in the neighborhood of 40k-60k, for reasons outlined below. Minimum salary of 25k per player.

Nationwide team caps. About $3 million for football, and about $650,000 for basketball. Nocera wants this to sound tantalizingly cheap, and it is.

Extended scholarships ~ possible six years. Every player who stays in school as an eligible athlete for four years, would be given whatever scholarship assistance he needed for two additional years, to complete a degree.

Lifetime health insurance.

A college football players' union, to assure legaliziation of the pay-and-cap scheme, and to admminister benefits, etc.

When you read the article, you'd be tempted to think, "Who the hell came up with this idea?" And you eventually find out; it is the people whom Joe Nocera has been talking to. Lawyers, and their litigation experts, who are now beginning some hig-profile lawsuits against the NCAA and the larger world of college sports. Nocera's wife, he reveals, works for one of the law firms who have worked on the leading case. Nocera never once quotes anybody like a Lloyd Carr, or David Brandon, or any other big-time college coach or administrator. He does quote such uninterested personages as Leigh Steinberg, and some of the paid experts in the current litigation. And naturally, he mentions Penn State, Ohio State and Miami. As if there is some cognizable thread running through all three situations.

The illustration that leads off the article is a doozy. There is a composite photo of leading college coaches with the stat-healdine that the combined 2011 salaries of the 15 highest-paid football coaches was $53.4 million. That composite is counterposed with one of college football players (including one Dilithium-powered QB) with the headline-stat that the combined salaries of the 13,877 Div.-I football players was (you'll never guess) $0 dollars. This is such laughable propaganda; God forbid the Times showing any interest in the 2011 salaries of the 15 highest-paid University Presidents (you know, the guys like Lee Bollinger who write Op-Eds for the Times on the side) or the total amount paid by universities for all of the of the collegiate grants-in-aid and other benefits for all of those football players. [Edit - There is a sidebar-graphic in the Times Magazine, featuring a bunch of eye-popping multi-million-dollar numbers that are supposed to impress us. I gather, what really pisses off the Times is something like 'income inequality' in college athletics. A millionaires' tax, perhaps? Anyway, attention is owed one item of substance given my comments just above. The Times cites the total amount paid in tuition scholarships for the Texas team ($3+million) as being less than Mack Brown's annual ($5+million) salary. Mack Brown is of course the single highest-paid coach in the country, by quite a lot. And University of Texas tuition is one of the cheapest in the country. A better example of a cherry-picked statistic is hard to imagine.]

I could go on and on. You can't go more than a couple of paragraphs at a time without encountering some complete howler, from a guy who's never spent a day as a college coach or an athletic director, and who seems to be largely disinterested in interviewing any of them. The lawyers and the economist-experts are more interesting to Nocera. Anyway, I leave it to you. I shudder to think that in the months and years to come, this garbage might become the go-to article for everybody (Occupy the Rose Bowl, apparently) who thinks that what we really need to do to fix things as they are is to pay college football players, certify a union for them and, naturally, give them all tax lawyers. I can't wait until the College Football Players Association hires a lobbyist and they begin making campaign donations to their new political action committee.

If the players are to be emplyees, why give them any scholorships money? They can register for courses using the employees' discount, just like everyone else. Maybe a discount on room and board, as well. Not sure how that works for university employees.

I actually thought lifetime healthcare was the only decent part of his plan. Some of these players have long term injuries from this sport, and the least the schools could do is cover the costs of those.

Lifetime health insurance shouldn't be paid by the university or NCAA. Once you graduate/turn pro/use up all your eligibility, it's over. If you aren't a pro by that point, time to put that degree you got for free by playing a game to work.

What I found really puzzling was when he said NCAA does not have to pay hockey and baseball players since they have the option to turn pro out of high school.

Then why the hell not solve the whole problem by doing the simple thing and allow football and basketball players to sign with NFL and NBA out of high school??? Why invent something so convoluted and ridiculous when he already stated an infinitely simpler solution in the same article?

Of course NFL and NBA would never agree to it since NCAA is the cheapest development league they could possibly create, but he never even explores it.

I would rather watch 2 star real student athletes competing against each other than some 5 star minor league "employees" of an NBA/NFL development league (even if it has a "marketing" agreement with NCAA). If I wanted to watch a minor league game, I would already be doing it. The whole point of why NCAA football and basketball is so popular is because they are students at real schools with real alumni, and Joe Nocera completely misses that point.

I find it so funny/bizarre that more people who complain about the explotation of college athletes don't talk more about this. College athletes get compensated (/paid) in the form of scholarships/coaching/health care/team meals/etc, if a player thinks he's worth more than that he should be able to 'find a job' that pays him his true value ie go pro. It's totally fair, all the athletes not good enough to go pro will stay in college. No more exploitation. Market clearing behavior. We will all still go to Michigan games and watch them on TV. The real villain are the pro leagues (and their players, ironically) who have fought very hard to stop kids from coming out of high school right to the pros.
Seriously, who is the villain here?

He also glosses over the Title IX implications, which would derail his plan immediately. At the end of the article he simply states that Title IX would "probably" be a sticking point (of course it would) and leaves it to other people to figure out that major roadblock. So in other words, "Here's my great plan. It won't work because of this, but hopefully somebody will figure that part out for me."

Nocera never once quotes anybody like a Lloyd Carr, or David Brandon, or any other big-time college coach or administrator.

True, the paid side of CFB has carved out a sort of protected niche against the NCAA's historically aggressive lawyering, which has done such a good job of silencing any challenges from the player's side of the fence. Even so, considering where the butter for their bread comes from, I wonder whether any AD/Coach-like person would dare to go on record challenging the core tenet of the NCAA's raison-d'être. And I would also doubt that Nocera or anyone else would take any large amount of space inside his own editorial detailing the arguments of his opposition, unless he had a lot of space at his disposal.

The lack of parity in the balance between "student-athletes" and the other participants in the NCAA universe is on graphic display on a regular basis; see "DeAnthony Arnett" for a comparison of the comparitive ease with which Arnett and Derek Dooley are allowed to find their optimum location. As long as the NCAA's dated and historically deformed concept of "amateurism" (reminiscent of the IOC ca. 1968) continues to produce such an unending stream of face-palms and howlers in every aspect of the process, people like Nocera will have plenty of logs to throw on the fire, and there will be plenty of people so fed up that Nocera will always have an audience.

Plus there are enough avenues to critique what seems to be class or region-induced myopia on their merits without getting all political...
For instance, why isn't Joe Nocera complaining about Apple's $80 billion cash horde? That's over $1 million per employee. Are Apple employees modern day slaves? Of course not, nor are college football players. Apple can charge way more than the marginal value of their products cause they are awesome and they have built a brand such that they can charge a premium for their products. Much like college sports. If Michigan's basketball team were an NBDL team where each player was getting paid $20k a year (ish), could they fill Crisler? The evidence says absolutely not as the D league is massively subsidized by the NBA. Like Apple, our athletic department (and many others around the country), derive their value from their brand because people like rooting for their schools (or their adopted schools).
That being said, in my opinion college athletes should be getting 'cost of attendance' scholarships and probably more money than that. Scholarships should be guaranteed for four years, denard should get a kickback for all the #16 jerseys Michigan sells, etc. Just seems more fair to me.

I've given some more thought on how to express my disagreement with Joe Nocera.

Nocera's main concern seems to be, "There is so much money being made in big college athletics! Let's figure out how to redistribute it." Nowhere do you see Nocera concerning himself with how to make the game better. If Nocera is concerned with leveling the differences between an Eastern Michigan and a Michigan, or an Ohio University and The Ohio State University, he doesn't really articulate it. (Other than a passing mention at scholarship/payroll number-reductions.) If he's concerned with funding non-revenue sports, he doesn't say and his plan is no answer; it might actually be destructive to the ability of an athletic department like Michigan's to perform that function.

And of course Nocera's plan does nothing to bring student-athletes closer to the rest of student life; it actually drives the two groups farther apart in every imaginable way; setting up a group of unionized employees, apart from the student body.

Nocera's plan also does nothing to encourage student-athletes to do much to be "students" during their first four years, since they will have another two years to make up for lost time and credits.

Moreover, Nocera's plan doesn't simplify anything in policing the rules and policies of the NCAA. The NCAA will have to open its own tax fraud and enforcement division. Players who get $25k will want $35k. The CFP union will want to see the books. The players who get $60k will want $100k. The Nocera Plan will never turn his alleged player-dissatisfaction into a state of everlasting satisfaction.

Nocera's great presumption, supported in this article only by a quote from Leigh Steinberg (wasn't Steinberg the agent who was told by Bo Schembechler to never again talk to anybody on his team as long as he was coaching?) was that players are terribly dissatisfied by the status quo. Nocera doesn't talk to any current athletes, and perhaps we shouldn't expect it. It's okay if Nocera wanted to have a detailed discussion about collegiate life with athletes like Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson. But Dave Brandon and Lloyd Carr were college athletes too. In any event, who would expect a group of young athletes posed with the question, "How would you like to get 50 grand a year while you play football at Florida State?" to answer anything other than, "Cool!"

I don't buy it. High schoolers all across the country are working their butts off, just for the chance to get a Division I athletic scholarship. And uniformly, they think it is the thrill of a lifetime if they win such a scholarship. I'd certainly be interested in the thoughts of this year's group of fine graduating seniors from the Michigan football team. I'd like to know what they like and dislike about the present system. What they think could be improved. But I really doubt that any of them feel ripped off.

Basing national NCAA policy on cases like Chris Webber (allegedly feeling ripped off by The Man) is like basing national tax policy on Warren Buffett. Which, come to think of it, is what the Times editorialists do the other six days of the week.

I appreciate your outrage and pretty much agree with you. The one mistake I think you are making however is calling it "Nocera's" plan. I don't think for a minute he came up with any of this on his own. I think he was fed the whole thing by his fiance and the people she works for and is parroting their wish list.

And if any of these people say they are doing this pro-bono or for no-fee, or don't stand to profit form this article or any suit, that is laughable. If they get any of what they want and all these student-athletes suddenly need representation you can be who will be first in line.

As to Nocera, someone asked in this thread about his history. To be honest as a financial reporter he had a good reputation. He was credible during the financial meltdown and got a lot of TV and radio time. Presumably that's what got him the Op-Ed gig. Sorry to see he feels he has to resort to this kind of inflammatory nonsense to make his mark there.

The reason that I was so pointedly personalizing it as "Nocera's plan" is because that is what he calls it. The NPR interview really demonstrates that. You'd probably be right, that if Nocera had some vaguely-academic "Collegiate Sports Institute" convened for the purpose of promoting the plan, it might be better for him. He hasn't done that. I think you have nailed the litigation interests.

Thank you. I haven't heard the NPR interview but will tomorrow. I had read his financial reporting in 2008/09 and appreciated it. He was also fairly regularly on PBS' Newshour, and he was good. This more recent Op-Ed stuff seems to coming from a different place...and not solely from him. That is unfortunate.

I'm not shilling for you here...I'm actually a Maureen Dowd, Bill Safire (ok as Maureen's boss), Frank Rich fan (Nocera I believe replaced Rich). This just doesn't have the same heft.

Also, I apologize for the several typos in my post - hate when I see that and can't change them.

I should add; Nocera is a regular guest on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, as well as a few other programs. And this article prompted an interview this weekend. NPR.org is easy to navigate, with good podcasts, etc. Here's the Nocera interview with NPR's Jacki Lyden:

Interestingly, she refers to the article as "The Miracle Cure for College Sports." I'm not sure how the title got changed; I presume that the interview was taped before a headline change, or perhaps the online edition is different from the print?

The NPR interview contains this weird and inexplicable assertion by Joe Nocera:

LYDEN: And on top of that, you propose that because of the physical nature of what they do they should get lifetime health care benefits.

NOCERA: Yes. I believe they should get lifetime health insurance benefits. And I also believe they should get six-year scholarships. I mean, it's criminal what happens now. It's a one-year scholarship.

If a new coach comes in and he decides that he doesn't like the way this halfback plays, he cuts him. There's something obscene about that. I think there should be a six-year scholarship so the players can play out their time and then still have two years to get a real education.

Does anybody know what Nocera is trying to articulate? Or is Nocera just that dumb? Does Joe Nocera really think that college football coaches can and do make wholesale roster changes like that? And that scholarships are lost under those circumstances? Let's set aside the evils of oversigning -- if Nocera wanted to talk about that, he could get a lot of us cheering him on. And he'd be late to the "End oversigning!" Party. I don't think Nocera is talking about oversigning, and Nocera might not even know what oversigning is.

Nocera's background as others have noted is from the business side of things, so he is actually a relative newcomer to the whole general/sports/politics columnist Op/Ed position.

Because of his business background it is not surprising that he'd view things from a business angle. (1) He sees the big schools making money from high profile teams and big money TV contracts. (2) He sees that the teams (CFB and MBB) are not paid. (3) So he concludes that the solution is what he proposes. On the pages of the New York Times, many commentators have pointed out the many limitations of his approach which have also been repeated here.

One aspect he and others have consistent missed is that the problem with the current system isn't just the NCAA and its archaic shamateurism rules but the limitation on what the student athletes can study. They can't actually be students of athletics. They can't actually devote their time and energies into developing their professional potential. The athletic grants and tenders are the only form of major aid given for a non-degree granting concentration or program by universities and colleges. If they schools are allowed to develop the talents of the kids fully we'd cut out a lot of problems and solve many of the issues.

1. By allowing training year round with full professional input and participation, players will have a very realistic understanding of the likelihood of a professional career.

2. By having the best training it would make the relationship more equitable and in line with the type of relationship other students have in the fine arts, drama, and music.

3. The lives of artists, actors and musicians are as short and uncertain as that of any athletes, and YET many schools offer full degrees and even advanced degrees in these fields. Why not performace athletics if there is performance voice, Master of Fine Arts of Master of Dramatic Arts degree?

I am extremely convinced that he has been moved to the Op-Ed section wiht the understanding that he will write extremely combative, poorly researched and threateningly worded articles specifically to sell papers and generate page views. I do not believe that the articles I've read since he moved there (I'm not familiar with his business writing. Perhaps it was that way there too) are marketing tools. It's kind of disgusting.

I'm sure the athletic departments that haven't been making profits the past few years just love the idea of giving every kid 40-50 grand and lifetime health insurance. What this guy wants to do is drive smaller D1 programs into the ground.

The money made by athletic departments in football and basketball goes to fund all the other sports both men's and women's varieties at most universities. The money is already redistributed based on Title IX requirements..........

I think EMU could stomach the $2000 stipend but paying players 40 to $60,000 would be the death knell to the program. Unless that money is in lieu of a scholarship and if that were the case, could we end all pretenses that College Football is nothing but a free farm system for the NFL?

I think that Nocera's idea would be that about 75 schools would run big-time pay-for-play programs in a kind of mini-NFL. "The SEC" on a national scale. And everybody else would be like the Ivy League. I'm serious; I think Joe Nocera says as much, between the Sunday Times Magazine article and his NPR interview.

All of that raises yet one more obvious question; just how many middling collegiate football programs will become unsustainable? And how many schools will eliminate football altogether, with thousands(?) of football scholarhips ended, under the "Nocera plan"?

I said that Nocera doesn't come from a background in college football, and that as a reporter, he appears to have solicited no information or opinions from qualified people in college football. That was my point, and you missed it.

And your reference to Tom Izzo (capital T and capital I) is further evidence of your reading-incomprehension; Nocera might have satisifed me, if he had included some detailed interview material from people like Izzo. I had suggested Carr and Brandon. I'd prefer Carr and Brandon, to Izzo. But whatever. Nocera didn't even try, it seems. Thanks to you for helping me point that out.

And now let's just drill down a bit on the rest of your dumb thinking. Let's carefuly consider who Nocera apparently talked to. This is as complete a list as I can muster, from the Sunday Times Magazine. I list in bold the names of people who seem to agree with Nocera. I list in regular type the people who Nocera quotes, but who pretty clearly do not agree with Nocera. All of the people in bold are people who have no apparent experience in collegiate athletic administration. Those are Nocera's backers. And all of the people in regular type are the qualified people, who Nocera quotes in talking about problems, but who say nothing at all in support of Nocera's goofy "plan."

Mark Emmert - CEO of the NCAA, former University of Washington presidetn, former chancellor at LSU, a faculty memeber and administrator at UConn, Montana State and Colorado.

Brit Kirwan - University of Maryland Chancellor.

"A new breed of reformers" - A group, unnamed, not quoted, and otherwise unidentified by Joe Nocera.

Taylor Branch - Quoted by Nocera as calling the NCAA a kind of "plantation." For that risible baiting, I'd refer to Taylor Branch as a kind of professional advocate in the racial grievance industry, which is what he is. Taylor Branch is a historian; and one with a rather notorious history of ethnically-inflammatory comments. Taylor Branch has never been a college athlete, coach, or athletics administrator.

Leigh Steinberg - Multi-millionaire sports agent. Nocera talked a lot about coaching salaries, but never once mentioned how much people like Steinberg might make. Not that I care. It just seems like Nocera's interest in salaries derived from athletic performances is, well, limited. And Nocera's glossing over Leigh Steinberg's financial interest in the professionalization of collegiate athletics is breathtaking in its arrogatn stupidity.

James Duderstadt - Former President of the University of Michigan. I commend Duderstadt's quote (see above). I feel confident that Duderstadt would fight a 'Nocera Plan' in every way possible.

Schwarz and Rascher - "Two Bay Area economists... litigation consultants." In other words, two guys whose job it is to supply opinion testimony in litigation against the NCAA. Now we're getting the idea.

Andrew Zimbalist - "Sports economist at Smith College." Never a player; never a coach; never an athletic director. A pure Ivy League academic.

Michael Hausfeld - A plaintiffs' lawyer currently suing the NCAA.

William Isaacson - A lawyer in the same firm as David Boies (quite possibly the highest-profile litigation attorney in the U.S.), and Nocera's fiancee, who does p.r. for that firm. Isaacson has been involved in suing the NCAA.

So that's it. The bold names are all of the people who seem to be sympatico with Joe Nocera. They are all peole who have no personal experience in sports, apart from discussing it in courtrooms or classrooms. Nocera doesn't seem to have talked to any real coaches or players; the closest he got were the former university presidents who agree with some of the basic problems. Problems that would almost certainly be made much, much worse by Joe Nocera's five-point plan.

Nocera's plan is not only illegal (Title IX), it would kill off the majority of football programs in the country (all outside of the FBS, and half of the teams in it). But it's biggest crime is how stupid the arbitrary pay structure is set up?

Why a $3m salary cap? If one program can afford to pay more, why shouldn't it? He's trying to set up some sort of equal playing field, all the while expounding a plan that would be the death knell of most of the programs in the country. WTF?

And while he has a point about the schools making millions and the kids making nothing, how is $60k more than a drop in the bucket? Why create a pay-for-play situation and not allow the free market to dictate what that pay should be? Why no mention of likeness ownership? Sponsorship deals?

Why create such a plan? It's full of half-measures and contradictions. He's willing to kill off most of the programs in the country, but he's not willing to let the cat out of the bag and let capitalism work its course, whittling what we now call college football to an inevitable 15-20 team league? His NCAA would be just as illegal a monopoly as the current one, what with the salary caps and all.

That aside, he is absolutely correct about extended scholarships. They should be for five years. And, I like the idea of life-long health insurance, particularly in cases of injuries sustained while playing.

That being said, this diary is probably too political to exist on this board.

To be sure, extending scholarship terms is the least offensive part of the Nocera Plan. It isn't a bad idea, per se.

However, my original point was that if Joe Nocera and the reformers don't like the idea of a system in which football and basketball players merely major in "eligibility," extending their scholarship terms doesn't help much. It gives them more time, and more reason, to "major in eligibility" until their playing time runs out. Now, this may be a necessary evil, if things remain unchanged. But wasn't the idea of "reform" to change things?

As I have said all along, Joe Nocera's plan would succeed in making many of the problems he complains about much worse, at the big 72 football schools in super-conferences. And everywhere else, it would reduce football to the Patriot League.

If a new coach comes in and he decides that he doesn't like the way this halfback plays, he cuts him.

Joe Nocera was trying to tell the audience that a scholarship football player is at risk of being cut and losing his scholarship, because a new coach "doesn't like the way [that] halfback plays."

That's not true. That is entirely unrepresentative of college football. Frankly, it is a lie. The world that Joe Nocera (wrongly) envisions is way beyond the worst abuses of oversigning. Nobody in college football is doing what Joe Nocera implies.

That's my complaint. It is with Joe Nocera (not you) and I am not backing down.

That's my complaint. It is with Joe Nocera (not you) and I am not backing down.

Which is weird, because no one asked you to "back down". My post agreed with your original post. I just thought that the extended scholarships are a good idea. To this, you replied.

A question for you; I am going to make it easy, in a multiple-choice format.

The former quote contradicts the latter. If your complain wasn't with me, why try the old "you're stupid so here's a funny multiple-choice question" tact?

But kudos to you: the multiple choice thing was very funny. Not how you intended it to be, mind you, but because you thought that I, a guy who signed scholarship papers, didn't know the system, and because you were so clearly wrong.

I'm not asking you to back down on any of your convictions. I am asking you to not be wrong, and to not be a dick.

but how in the hell did this Republican claptrap escape the no-politics ax? Is it enough to weave a sports story into the bullshit?

Incidentally, Nocera was the business reporter for the NYTimes for quite a while before they made him an opinion columnist. And his single-handed destruction of the worst foreclosure mill in the country, accomplished in the short time he's been on the opinion page, should have been enough to keep his name clear from ridiculous condescension from the likes of you.